Valentine’s Day usually comes wrapped in hearts, chocolates, and feel-good love stories. But sometimes, the best books explore the other side of romance: the heartbreak, the obsession, and the messy, complicated truths people don’t like to talk about. From secret desires and heartbreaking betrayals to unfulfilled longings, we’re rounding up stories that showcase that love can be intense, painful, and unforgettable.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Catherine Earnshaw faces a tough choice between her childhood love, Heathcliff, and the wealthy, gentle Edgar Linton. She chooses Edgar for comfort and status, which sparks a dangerous obsession in Heathcliff that affects everyone around them. Wuthering Heights follows Heathcliff’s life from youth to old age, telling a dark, intense story of love, revenge, and the consequences of a heart that won’t let go.
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The Favorites by Layne Fargo
Katarina Shaw has always dreamed of becoming an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely foster kid, their instant connection turns them into a powerful ice dancing duo. From childhood sweethearts to champions, their chemistry and rebellious style captivate the world. Until a shocking incident at the Olympics ends their partnership. Ten years later, an unauthorized documentary sparks public curiosity, and Kat steps forward to tell the real story of their bond, their heartbreak, and the truths behind the rumors that have haunted them.
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Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek couldn’t be more different. Peter, a successful Dublin lawyer, struggles with grief, relationships, and self-medication after their father’s death, while Ivan, a socially awkward young chess player, finds an intense connection with Margaret, a woman with her own troubled past. Amid loss and longing, the two brothers and the people they love navigate desire, despair, and the possibilities of life, discovering how much a person can hold without breaking.
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Heart the Lover by Lily King
In her senior year of college, Jordan falls into an intoxicating world of friendship, love, and intellectual ambition with two star students, Sam and Yash, forming a charged love triangle that will shape all their lives. Decades later, a surprise visit forces her to confront the choices and secrets of her youth.
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Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth
Jenny McLaine’s life is unraveling. Her career is stalled, her body feels like it’s betraying her, her ex has moved on, and her mother is moving in. In her thirties and struggling with adulthood, Jenny must navigate friendships, family, and her own expectations. Told through texts, emails, and lively prose, Grown Ups is a sharp and brutally honest look at modern womanhood, showing that sometimes the only way to grow up is to pick up the pieces yourself.
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Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Andy loves Jen, Jen loved Andy, and now he doesn’t know why she walked away. Homeless and waiting for his stand-up career to take off, Andy clings to the hope of fixing their relationship, but he still has a lot to learn, especially about Jen’s side of the story. Dolly Alderton’s story is a sharp and relatable tale of romantic disaster and friendship.
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Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Queenie Jenkins, a 25-year-old Jamaican-British woman in London, struggles to fit into two cultures while navigating work, heartbreak, and self-worth. After a messy breakup, she seeks comfort in all the wrong places, making choices that force her to ask herself the tough questions: “Who am I? What do I want? Who do I want to be?”
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Heart Talk by Cleo Wade
Heart Talk is a collection of over 120 poems, mantras, and affirmations designed to inspire and uplift. Full of practical, relatable wisdom, this book is a daily boost of empowerment, motivation, and gentle guidance for navigating life’s ups and downs.
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Less by Andrew Sean Greer
About to turn fifty and reeling from a breakup, failed novelist Arthur Less decides to escape it all by accepting multiple literary event invitations around the world. From near-romances in Paris to life-threatening mishaps in Berlin, sandstorms in Morocco, and unexpected encounters in India and the Arabian Sea, Less navigates misadventures, misunderstandings, and first and last loves.
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Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering
Far from her Long Island past, Lucy Albright is looking for a fresh start at a small California college. Determined to leave old betrayals behind, she is ready to start anew—until she meets Stephen DeMarco. Charming, complicated, and impossible to resist, Stephen awakens a side of Lucy she’s never seen, while hiding a past that could destroy him. Drawn together in a thrilling, addictive connection, their relationship brings consequences neither of them could have predicted.
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Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
In Acts of Desperation, an unnamed narrator falls completely under the spell of the magnetic writer Ciaran, only to be suddenly rejected, sending her into a spiral of obsession and longing. Balancing rebellion and submission, love and desire, Nolan’s novel explores the intoxicating, often destructive pull of what we want and how we want it, delivering a raw tale of fantasy, passion, and power.
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Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Set in 1950s Paris, the novel follows David, a young American expatriate torn between his fiancée, Hella, and an irresistible attraction to the bartender Giovanni. Their affair unfolds in secret, but Hella’s return from her trip away triggers a crisis that leads to tragedy. This powerful story explores desire, identity, and the complexities of the human heart.
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